The Grand Jubilee

This book and its cohorts (Twelve Fair Kingdoms, And Then There'll Be Fireworks) are labelled "The Ozark Fantasy Trilogy," but to me, like Anne McCaffrey's Pern, they're science fiction: the people are of Earth stock, living on a distant planet, and they got there by way of technology (a spaceship)). Planet Ozark's soceity is a strange mix of Appalachian folkways, Medieval feudalism, numerology, monotheism (God is referred to as "The Holy One," and there's no mention of Jesus at all), and "magic" (probably psionic), leavened with early-21st-Century technology kept sternly in its place by the Magicians (male magic-users) and Grannies (elderly female ones). In many ways, thanks chiefly to the Magicians and Magicians of Rank, the place is a paradise: no war, no famines, no natural disasters, no plagues, no degenerative age-related diseases. But humans will be humans, and thereby hangs the tale. Responsible of Brightwater is 15 years old when the story begins--marriageable enough (girls on Ozark sometimes marry as young as 10), but still determinedly single, and inexplicably (at least to the reader) capable of magic far beyond anything accessible to any other female on the planet. As the Grand Jubilee--the gathering of all the families on Ozark, held every 500 years to confirm the concept of the shaky token planetary "government" known as the Confederation of Continents--approaches, every spell she casts and everything she knows about her people convince her that big trouble is in the offing. But even Responsible couldn't have anticipated the form it takes: a move by the Smiths (never the sharpest knives on the table) to make themselves a literally royal family (engineered by their Magician of Rank, Lincoln Parradyne Smith the 39th, who plans to be the Power Behind the Throne), a separatist movement led by the isolationist Travellers, and--following her own very brief sexual liasion with Lewis Motley Wommack the 33rd--a coup by the Magicians of Rank, who place her in pseudocoma with results nearly disastrous for all. Elgin's prose is lyrical and captures much of the spirit of the old-time Southern hill country as it might be if jumped forward a few centuries, with a firm resolve to remain "good boones," self-sufficient and isolated from the remainder of humanity. Since the book is the second in a trilogy, it naturally ends on a cliffhanging note and doesn't answer every question it raises (Why *is* Responsible so important? How did she learn to use magicks ordinarily restricted to men? If "violence is foreign" to Ozarkers, why are at least two of its families described as involved in a feud? And why, in a society that highly values female premarital chastity, does she allow Lewis Motley to "take her maidenhead"--especially when she doesn't seem the least bit interested in getting him to marry her afterward?). But the people of Ozark comprise a fascinating society that you'll want to understand better, and the best way to do that is to sti

This is from the book inside page:"Preparation for the first Grand Jubilee in five hundred years were in full swing on Ozark. Grannys, Magicians, and a delegation from each of the Twelve Families had gathered, eager for the festivities to begin. But "Responsible of Brightwater" was nervous. Some Families were dead set against the Confederation of Continents, and this was the week it might go down for good. To make matters worse, handsome young Lewis Motley Wommack the 33rd had chosen this moment to arrive at Castle Brightwater, determined to use his amorous tricks to ferret out her Magic.Responsible had cast Spells half the night, and still only gotten one answer. There was trouble ahead. And she was right smack in the middle of it...And, when Ozark is endangered by Darkness and Night, a girl named Responsible must make "Magic bright!"